Contrastive Analysis Of Conceptual Metaphor In Wind Metaphor Between Chinese And English

This thesis is an attempt to make a comparative study of wind metaphor with a cognitive linguistic approach in English and Chinese. Traditionally,metaphor is regarded as a figure of speech,as more or less an ornamental device.It's related to poetry and rhetoric,not at the level of discourse,but at the level of the segment of discourse,namely the noun.With the birth and development of cognitive linguistics,people reconsider the metaphor.Lakoff and John in their masterpiece consider metaphor as the basic way of human thinking.And it exists in our daily language,and has a great influence on the way of speaking and our behavior and thinking.Most conceptual systems are metaphorical in nature.Therefore,metaphor is a cognitive tool.Besides,metaphor is closely related to people's experiences.The experience behind each metaphor is specific to a culture,so metaphor reflects cultural accumulations of specific speech communities.The cognitive view promotes the study of metaphor to its peak,and many scholars from different fields have shown their great interest in the field.The thesis uses the Conceptual Metaphor Theory to analyze wind metaphor in Chinese and English.And based on the universal and difference of wind metaphor in two languages,the thesis analyzes the internal reasons for the universal and difference.The thesis consists of 5 parts.Firstly the author briefly introduces the development of metaphor domestically and abroad,then puts forward the Conceptual Metaphor Theory and analyzes its working mechanism,classification of metaphor, and its function.The main part of this thesis focuses on the analysis of wind metaphor and points out the universality and difference of wind metaphors in two languages from the viewpoint of three wind attributes, namely,the shape of wind,the influence of wind,the direction of wind.It also probes into the causes for the universality and difference.In all,the thesis identifies and abstracts 7(near-) universal conceptual metaphors shared by both English and Chinese,6 conceptual metaphors that exist in English but not in Chinese,and 8 conceptual metaphors that exist in Chinese but not in English.The author attributes the universality to the common human bodily experience to support Lakoff's statement that metaphors are embodied.It is suggested that metaphors of wind are motivated by human physiological and psychological responses to wind. And the similarity is a result of the general cognition and conceptualization of wind based on the pervasive bodily experience.It is both differential social and cultural experience and differential cognitive processes that produce metaphor diversity.The author analyzes the difference in our metaphorization of wind concepts through the differences of social and cultural context,Traditional Chinese Medicine, social history and geography.The thesis gives a support to the cognitive linguistic view of metaphor and demonstrates the importance of cross-lingual and cross-cultural study.At the same time,the contrastive analysis of wind metaphor facilitates our understanding of the relationship between language and culture.The thesis is also useful for language learners to get a full understanding about the semantic extension of wind and facilitating the foreign language teaching,especially the teaching of vocabulary.Last but not least,the author points out the deficiency of this thesis.The thesis does not give a full and deep analysis and explanation of wind metaphor in two languages.And the author wants to draw more attentions to do comprehensive metaphorical analysis towards the natural phenomenon based on this thesis.